The Best Song From Every Queen Album

Queen went from playing hard and fast to dabbling in pomp and circumstance. They tried out disco, R&B and synth-pop. They blended in operatic elements, leveraged technological marvels, made their own rules and then broke every one of them. They made a thrilling habit of coming out of left field under the freak flag of Freddie Mercury, perhaps rock's greatest frontman.

This makes listing the best song from every Queen album a unique challenge. In some cases, one track will be so distinct from another that they could have come from entirely different bands. Eras diverge in astonishing ways.

Flash Gordon, Queen's 1980 soundtrack, isn't included here since – other than Brian May's cartoonishly great "Flash's Theme" and one other song – it's dominated by incidental music from the film. Otherwise, our deep dive attempts to find the greatest moment on a string of records that are overstuffed with them.

A thread runs through it all: a hard-won sense of individuality. Queen were a band like no other, both in the way they approached music and the way they approached everything else too. Even in death, Mercury found a way to inspire John Deacon, May and Roger Taylor once more – and, in so doing, inspire us all.

Which one came out on top? Keep scrolling as we select the best song from every Queen album.